Robert Fuller

- 1614

• Name	Robert Fuller  [1, 2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Death	Between 19 May 1613 and 31 May 1614	Redenhall with Harleston, Norfolk, England   [4, 5]
  Person ID	I7960	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of AP, Ancestor of TNH
  Last Modified	29 Mar 2020

  
  

  Family 1	Sara Dunkhorn   d. Bef 1 Jul 1584, Redenhall with Harleston, Norfolk, England
  Marriage	29 Jan 1573	Starston, Norfolk, England   [4]
  Children	+ 1. Edward Fuller,   b. Bef 4 Sep 1575   d. Aft 11 Jan 1621, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts (Age > 46 years)   2. Dr. Samuel Fuller,   b. Bef 20 Feb 1581   d. Between 30 Jul 1633 and 28 Oct 1633, Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts (Age > 52 years)
  Family ID	F4536	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	15 Mar 2020

  
  

  Family 2	Frances   d. Aft 31 May 1614
  Marriage	Aft 1 Jul 1584  [4]
  Family ID	F4563	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	19 Jul 2017

  
  

• Notes

  He was a butcher. Robert Fuller and his wife Sarah Dunkhorn are generally accepted as the parents of Mayflower passengers Edward and Dr. Samuel Fuller, who were definitely brothers, but the case for this parentage is not overwhelmingly strong. From "Was Matthew Fuller of Plymouth Colony a Son of Pilgrim Edward Fuller?" by Bruce Campbell MacGunnigle, Robert M. Sherman, and Robert S. Wakefield, The American Genealogist 61:194, 1985: Pilgrims Edward and Samuel Fuller came to Plymouth MA in 1620 on the Mayflower and have been accepted as sons of Robert Fuller of Redenhall, co. Norfolk, England (NEHGR 55:410-416). The two major pieces of evidence leading to this conclusion are the baptisms of Edward and Samuel to Robert Fuller, butcher, at Redenhall in 1575 and 1580, and the will of Robert Fuller, of the parish of Redenhall, yeoman, dated and proved in 1614. In his will Robert named wife Frances, son-in-law John Spaulding, and son Thomas; he gave son Edward a "tenement” and £20, son Samuel £15, daughter Ann Fuller £20, daughter Elizabeth Fuller £40, daughter Mary Fuller £40, and "grandson John Fuller, son of my son John Fuller" £5 for his apprenticeship (NEHGR 55:415-416). Is this sufficient to prove that the Mayflower Fullers were from Redenhall? The names Edward and Samuel were not uncommon and there was no known child named Robert in the early generations of descendants of those two Pilgrims. Their presumed father, Robert of Redenhall, was called butcher in the parish registers. Thomas Morton, writing in New English Canaan (Amsterdam 1637), said Samuel Fuller was brought up a butcher, and was a native of Wrington in Somerset; but when Samuel married Agnes Carpenter at Leiden, Holland, in 1613 they were recorded as "sayworker from London" and "spinster from Wrington" (MD 8:129-130). Robert Fuller, living in a small Norfolk town, gave no indication in his will that son Samuel was in Holland; Samuel of Plymouth Colony was a physician of sorts, an elder of the church, and seems to have been an educated man.

  
  

• Sources

  [S1647] The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony 1620-1633, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New York Historic Genealogical Society, 2004. [S3820] Francis H. Fuller, "Early New England Fullers." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 55:192, Apr 1901. [S101] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3 and The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-7, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996-2011. [S634] Mayflower Families Through Five Generations: Volume 4, Third Edition, Family of Edward Fuller by Bruce Campbell MacGunnigle. Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2006. [S1508] Bruce Campbell MacGunnigle, Robert M. Sherman, and Robert S. Wakefield, "Was Matthew Fuller of Plymouth Colony a Son of Pilgrim Edward Fuller?" The American Genealogist 61:194, 1985., year and place only.